Texas cartoon contest gunman had established connections to ISIS on Twitter

An investigator talking to
police officers on May 4 at the Autumn Ridge apartment complex,
which had been searched by investigators in
Phoenix.REUTERS/Nancy
Wiechec

One of the gunmen who attacked a cartoon-drawing contest in Texas
earlier this month had significant ties to Islamic State
sympathizers, fighters, and recruiters on Twitter,
according to The New York Times.

The Garland, Texas, contest that invited participants to draw the
Prophet Muhammad had in fact been advertised as a potential
target for those wishing to carry out attacks in the US on behalf
of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh). Some
Muslims find depictions of the Prophet offensive.

A prominent ISIS recruiter on Twitter, known as Mujahid Miski,
tweeted a link to a listing for the contest and encouraged his
followers to attack it, according to The Times. One of the Texas
gunmen, 30-year-old Elton Simpson, reportedly retweeted it and
later reached out to Mujahid Miski to ask that he direct message
him privately.

Simpson and another man, Nadir Soofi, opened fire on the contest
and shot a security guard before a police officer shot and killed
them both.

After the attack, Mujahid Miski sent out tweets suggesting he
knew Simpson. He reportedly tweeted: "I'm gonna miss Mutawakil.
He was truly a man of wisdom. I'm gonna miss his greeting every
morning on twitter."

Simpson, who first came to the attention of the FBI in 2006,
before ISIS became prominent on Twitter, also followed other
Western ISIS recruits on the social-networking site.

J.M. Berger, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and
coauthor of
"ISIS: The State of Terror," told The Times that Simpson "was
wired into a legitimate foreign fighters network" on Twitter. And
Simpson reportedly interacted with fighters who were actually in
Syria and Africa, not just ISIS sympathizers living in Western
countries.

Some fighters tweeted biographical information about Simpson
after that attack that hadn't yet been public knowledge,
according to The Times. This suggests he had personal contact
with them.

The police and FBI
investigators collected evidence on May 4, including a rifle,
where two gunmen were shot dead in Garland,
Texas.REUTERS/Laura
Buckman

Simpson pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on
Twitter before the attack. It's unlikely that he was in direct
contact with core leaders of ISIS, but the Texas attack still
highlights the growing threat of "lone wolf" terrorists who might
easily be inspired to carry out attacks after consuming jihadist
content online and establishing contact with recruiters on social
media.

The US government is now scrambling to contain this threat. Last
week the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs
hosted a panel called "Jihad 2.0: Social Media in the Next
Evolution of Terrorist Recruitment."

Berger and his coauthor wrote in their book that "what ISIS has
accomplished so far will have long-term ramifications for
jihadist and other extremist movements that may learn from its
tactics."

"A hybrid of terrorism and insurgency, the former Al Qaeda
affiliate, booted out of that group in part due to its excessive
brutality, is rewriting the playbook for extremism," he wrote.